Parker County, 97

Some people make it to my age

And never been shot at.

Some people never been

To rural Texas.

Sour sweat

And salt so thick inside her breath,

The soaked and baked midnight air

Proved too heavy for her cotton shirt

With slashes black and grey.

We left the lights

To see the stars

And moons of Saturn,

Grandest Jupiter.

She showed me heaven

Far above

And down below.

The strictest Christian girl

I'd ever know

Moaned, "Goddamn."

We eventually heard the cracks.

Somebody thought they owned the earth.

We stayed so low that all the bullets

Hummed a mocking buzz 

Above our heads and naked backs.

We sprinted, dodged,

And reached the car to find my window

Shattered.

Sitting on the broken glass

That caught and lodged inside my skin,

I drove us back

To city concrete,

Constant clouds of glow,

Her parents' home.

We hardly felt we nearly died,

At least by gunshot.

- 7/22/25